Three Years in Vice? Really?
by noenigma
Summary: Just a fun little piece concerning Lewis' claim to have worked vice in the past.


Lewis commented in _Fearful Symmetry_ that he'd worked three years in vice… thinking about Lewis and his reaction to the more sordid details of the job we've been shown down through the years that idea seemed incredibly ludicrous and led to this little piece.

This is purely for fan purposes...no copyright infringement intended.

Three Years in Vice

"I worked vice three years," Lewis said reassuringly to the obviously embarrassed young student all but hiding her reddened face from him. "Whatever you have to say won't shock me…just spit it out."

His sergeant, unobtrusively standing off to the side, almost laughed out loud in disbelief. Lewis. Three years in vice. Really? Unbelievable. He'd have dismissed the idea out of hand if he hadn't heard it straight from the man's mouth in his calm, sure, totally sincere voice. But…Lewis? Three years in vice? Surely not.

The man couldn't actually say the word 'sex', had to resort to a look and a 'you know' or a ridiculous euphemism—'kinky rompy pompy' being a prime example. More vulgar or explicit expressions were even more foreign to him. Three years in vice would have at the least left him knowing the language. No, impossible to believe Lewis had spent three years in vice regardless of how sincere he'd managed to sound making the claim.

Still, though Hathaway had to swallow hard and found it impossible to meet the girl's eyes once she'd choked out what it was that had had left Hathaway's face as just as red as her own, Lewis had patted her gently on the shoulder and calmly thanked her for telling him as though she'd recounted nothing more shocking than a visit to the library.

After she'd scurried away, Lewis looked over at his red-faced sergeant and shook his head.

"You graduate-entry sorts," he said, "you'd think you'd never heard the like before. Sheltered life you've led." And Hathaway who was very sure he'd led a much less sheltered life than Lewis himself decided a half-grin was more than enough answer to the inspector's jab. No way was he going to call Lewis on his three years in vice comment, 'rompy pompy' notwithstanding.

_"__Ah, don't mind him," the sergeant said with a nod of his head towards Morse, "a man of the world, is the chief inspector. You won't say anything he hasn't heard before. And me? I worked in vice three years back in Newcastle…whatever it is, it won't shock me. Go on then, tell us what it's about." The young man drew in a deep breath and apparently drawing strength from Lewis' assurance spilled out his sordid tale. Morse thought, and not for the first time, that he really ought to give Lewis the head in interviews more often. He had a knack for it. The open, sincere look he wore on his face and all that friendly chatter spoken in such a way that it sounded the gospel truth even if it couldn't possibly be._

_Sergeant Lewis. Three years in vice. Right._

_If Lewis had been in vice as he claimed, Newcastle must have been the cleanest city in all of England. For that would have been before his sputtering outrage at the widow he'd discovered at a man's house the day following her husband's murder. "She'd got nothing on underneath!" he'd reported in shocked disbelief as though adultery was something he'd never run into before.* If he had worked those three years in vice, he'd have already seen more than his share of marital infidelity, wayward husbands being the bread and butter of the trade._

_No, the idea was preposterous. Especially calling to remembrance a couple of pub conversations he'd shared with Lewis through the years…_

_"__I still can't make out why Kemp was naked," Lewis had banged on again about the art professor dumped into the Cherwell. If it hadn't been for the open puzzlement in the sergeant's voice, Morse would have taken it as a joke. But there had been Lewis' familiar questioning tone and the wrinkle of befuddlement on his face; Morse had let his answering retort die unvoiced in order to nurture the burgeoning detective in his sergeant._

_"__All right, then. Why are people naked?" Morse had prompted although once Max had established death had occurred after the professor was naked and therefore his clothing hadn't been removed to hamper identification of the body, Morse had thought the answer more than obvious._

_"__To wash…" Lewis had ventured._

_"__Yes, yes, but what else? What else do people take their clothes off for?"_

_Lewis had scrunched his face up in thought before throwing out, "Sun bathing."_

_"__Come on Lewis, you are the married man!" Morse had said in exasperation. From Lewis' look of surprised comprehension, Morse had to conclude that the thought really had not occurred to his sergeant.**_

_That conversation alone should have conclusively ended the matter, but if he'd needed more evidence there'd been Lewis' report on his discovery that Valerie Craven had undergone a termination in London before her disappearance…_

_"__I think, and I'm guessing here, but I got out me diary and by my reckoning she wouldn't quite have been 16, when she and Maquire were…" here Lewis had resorted to a small nod, followed by cocking his head off to the side, and finishing with a 'you know' as though he couldn't even choke out the words._

_Morse had mimicked Lewis' motions and said, "'…were you know.' You're such a prude, Lewis."_

_Lewis had looked pained but hadn't bothered to put up a defense. "Anyway, that's my guess. The real father wouldn't have been too keen on her having an…" Here too the subject had appeared to be a bit too mature for the sergeant. _

_"__When it comes to biology, it's a foreign language to you, isn't it?" Morse had asked laughing.__*** _

_And it had remained so down through the years. Lewis had on an occasion or two and with some difficulty managed to substitute 'rompy pompy' for the 'you know', but __he'd never shown any of the accustomed familiarity years in vice would have lent any man. _

_In fact, the way Lewis was about sex it hardly seemed possible he was a married man; that he might have spent any time in vice was beyond laughable. But their witness couldn't know that as he spelled out his encounter with the prostitute who was almost certainly their Jane Doe even then undergoing Dr. Hobson's gentle ministrations down in the mortuary._

_"__And she'd no identifiable marks?" Lewis prompted. "Piercings, tattoos, things of that sort?"_

_The boy's red cheeks darkened to purple as he said, "She had…a butterfly on her…well between her…um…and when she uh…"_

_Lewis interest quickened at that. As it should. A tattoo would explain the need for the mutilations in an otherwise notably detached killing. "This butterfly-coloured? Faded, new?"_

_"__Not new. Sort of faded…purples and blacks."_

_Lewis nodded and asked, "And she gave you no name at all?"_

_"__No. "_

_"__She sound like she'd come from around here? Up north maybe? London?"_

_"__I suppose she might have sounded a bit like you…maybe…I…we, uh…didn't talk much, you know?"_

_"__Aye, I know," Lewis said. "Anything else you can tell us?" But the boy had told all he knew. The sergeant clapped a hand on the boy's shoulder and sent him on his way with, "You've been a great help…thank you for coming in." The boy scurried away and Morse shook his head after him. They'd guessed there'd been a tattoo, and one that would make identifying the woman that much more likely…knowing it had been a faded purple and black butterfly would help narrow the field a great deal, but they'd still have their work cut out for them. Especially, seeing she wasn't known to the local vice. She'd been off her turf, and though from the looks of it she would most certainly be in someone's books somewhere it was anyone's guess where that would be. Not quite a needle in a haystack, but…_

_Lewis interrupted Morse's thoughts with a satisfied sigh. "I thought I'd be up the night going through the books, but no need now…I can't call to mind the name, but one of me old mates in Newcastle will, and there'll be plenty in her file to identify her properly." Lewis was already striding off to find a phone and call his old mates before Morse shook off his surprise and followed after him._

_Three years in vice? Lewis? Really?_

_*Service of All the Dead _Inspector Morse

_**The Wolvercote Tongue_ Inspector Morse

_***Last Seen Wearing _Inspector Morse


End file.
